This studio's goal was to design an urban megaform as an aggregation of buildings. This aggregated figure unfolds within itself a series of new urban grounds. This was explored at first as mass and then through section.

This project explores two disciplinary problems: the problem of part to whole and the relationship of building to ground.

The first problem has been described under two formal models: that of heteronomus cities, in which the buildings are all connected as a constant ground and the public and circulation spaces seem as carved out figures, and the autonomous cities, in which each building does not sacrifice itself and retains its own figural identity, creating a continuous ground connecting them. This project attempts to create a new formal diagram, in which the aggregation is both heteronomous and autonomous, both figure and ground. Each building in the aggregation is not just on the ground, but also becomes the ground for the next building.

The second problem is that of how a building meets the ground. Several methods were evaluated as possible rulesets for the aggregated figure, such as sinking the building into the ground, elevating the building from the ground, allowing the ground through the building, etc.

We started with the Sears Tower, deconstructing it into its nine bundled tubes. These were then aggregated by stacking them end to end to create a continuous form which was then wrapped upon itself. This figure was then disrupted at the connections between buildings by a delamination and entanglement. This creates a piranesi-like space which serves to give individuality back to the individual buildings. Each of these entangled spaces serves as lobby between buildings.